Having rather enjoyed the Sandman interlude, I have to say I am less that completely enamoured by Ian Esselmont's contributions to the Malazan universe :). I mean, yes, it's nice to be able to get more back-story on characters from the Book of the Fallen. It is also very cool to be able to learn more about the Crimson Guard and also get more of a feel for the continent of Quon Tali. But yes, having finished Night of Knives and now Return of the Crimson Guard, I'm pretty happy that I did not interrupt my reading of the Book of the Fallen for this :).
Anyhow, let's not make this blog a book review only space! I realise that I haven't mentioned anything of the awesome trip to the Fram museum last month, or the short but awesome trip to the Netherlands! It turns out that the CEO of the company I now work for is into Nordic explorers in a big way! The end result was that she took the whole company (which, unlike my previous employer, consists of a number of people small enough to fit comfortably on the top deck of an old Norwegian exploration vessel turned museum) out for a very special dinner!
The Fram Museum is arguably one of the most exciting in all of Norway, yet I had never been there! So it was doubly exciting to have the museum director come along to walk us through some of the history of two of Norway's most famous explorers, Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen! From that, to the most excellent three-course dinner on the deck of the Fram, to the guided tour of the lower decks of the vessel itself, it was truly an evening to remember!
The trip to the Netherlands was in a way the opposite, a bit of a getaway from Norway :). More precisely, the prevalent weather, which had been particularly dark, cold and wet. We were away for a long weekend and the weather was amazing! A proper autumn with sunshine and colours on the trees. Not to mention a significantly warmer ambient temperature :D.
We managed to explore a bit, enjoyed some good meals as well as the usual visits to the farmers' market to get cheese and caught up with family. There was also an added bonus when Vinod (who seems to have given up on his privately hosted blog :|) mentioned that he was flying in to Amsterdam a few hours before we were scheduled to fly out! A wholly unexpected and entertaining afternoon of catching up ensued :).
Since then the weather's been the main cause for excitement. First there was the huge dump of snow early in November, which seemed to have collectively caught out the whole of south-eastern Norway. Chaos on the roads, thousands of cars without winter tires causing hundreds of accidents and so on. A lot of people lost their driver's licenses apparently! Good thing I take the train to and from work :D.
Then, annoyingly, things warmed up, and all the white disappeared into slush. But now the snow's back again. The general consensus of the meteorologists seems to be that even this will not last. But hey, compared to the first couple of winters I saw when I moved full time, this is awesome! There's snow! Even if short-lived :). Any amount of respite from the unremitting darkness is more than welcome if you ask me!
In many ways this has been a very cool year! I think. New work, colleagues, technology, ideas, methods. Things I have learned, things I've realised I know and can share! Malazans and Formula 1. Public transport and thinking about carbon. There's still a whole month to go of course! Let's hope there's more light than dark :).
